Thursday, November 18, 2004

Seeing in the Spirit

Did you know that it is possible to look in the spirit and see? Consider Joshua and the children of Israel, as they stood before the mighty walled city of Jericho. The LORD appeared to Joshua and said, “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king and the mighty men of valor” (Joshua 6:2).

In the natural, the city of Jericho did not yet belong to Joshua and the army of Israel. Yet God was telling Joshua to see that this actually was so. The Lord was not directing Joshua to look in the natural, but to see in the spirit.

Anybody with eyeballs can see things in the natural. But to see in the spiritual realm, we need to draw upon the resources of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.

When we are born again, we have the right to see in the spirit, because we have the Holy Spirit inside us. We also have the right to hear in the spirit, because Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice.” God has also given us His Word, so we have the right to see everything He says to us in the Word. We should expect to see it in the spirit.

To see with our spiritual eyes, we must look past what our natural eyes reveal to us, because they to not show us the whole truth. Often, what we see with our natural eyes may not even reveal the truth to us at all. Our eyes can show us things that are facts, but not necessarily the truth.

There are facts and there are truths. Facts are of the natural realm, but the truth belongs to the spiritual. There may be a divergence between them for a time, but the facts must eventually line up with truth. (The realm of the spirit is greater than the natural realm, for the natural comes forth from the spiritual — God, who is spirit, is the creator of the natural, physical realm.)

The fact for Joshua was that Israel did not yet possess or defeat the city of Jericho. The truth, however, was that God had already given the city into Joshua’s hands. Joshua’s job was simply to see this and do what God showed him to do.

Learn how to see in the spirit: When God shows you something in His Word, immediately begin to agree with it. Speak it out with your mouth. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). In other words, faith comes by a continual receptivity to the Word. As you speak in agreement with the Word, let it fill your heart and your thoughts. Expect pictures of it form in your mind, bubbling forth from your spirit into your imagination — you may even receive visions and dreams. The more you learn to see that thing which God has spoken, the more your expectation will grow that it will come to pass.

Remember, your job is not to try and figure out how to make it come to pass. Your job is to see it in the spirit and believe. Then let God show you what you need to do about it — He already has it all figured out. As you do, you will eventually see it come to pass in the natural, because the facts must eventually line up with the truth, and the natural must eventually line up with the spiritual.

No comments:

Post a Comment